Hello, world! This blog began on September 28, 2007, and so far nobody has come looking for me with tar and feathers.
On my honor, I will do my best not to bore you. All comments are welcome as long as your discourse is civil and your language is not blue.

Happy reading, and come back often!

Copyright 2007 - 2016 by Robert H. Brague

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Super Wednesday

Super Tuesday is over and ten more states have had their say in the delegate-selection processes leading to national conventions this summer that will select candidates for our quadrennial presidential election in November. In one party, the incumbent, one B. H. Obama, is running unopposed, so all the drama and media attention at the moment are centered on the other party, where four individuals (out of an original nine) are still hanging tough. Do the names Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, or Ron Paul ring a bell? Only 22 of our 50 states have completed their primaries or caucuses to date. If I may quote Yogi Berra, it ain’t over till it’s over.

But my sojourn as a poll worker is finished for another little while. Over the past 10-day period I served as a precinct clerk on four different occasions, three of them in county-wide early-voting locations (Georgia instituted early voting about a decade ago). Very long days they were, too. I thought being away from home so much might affect my posting -- hence the admonition last week to “Watch this space” -- but I still managed to get a couple of posts in there.

Not bad for someone who will turn 71 shortly.

Turnout was rather light in our state. To be specific, only about 800,000 Georgians voted in this election, which was billed as a Presidential Preference Primary. By contrast, nearly four million Georgians voted in the 2008 Presidential Election. In the precinct where I worked, only around 900 stalwart and dedicated voters showed up yesterday out of 3,900 registered. Some may have participated in the early voting last week, but still....

Our next election takes place in July, when we pick sheriffs, mayors, members of school boards, representatives to both houses of the State legislature, and a representative to the U.S. Congress. I don’t believe Georgia has a U.S. Senate race this year (Senators serve 6-year terms). Then it will be on to more fun in November.

In other news, Mrs. RWP and I saw our granddaughter in a middle-school production of Mulan that easily rivaled some college-level productions I’ve seen for costuming, set decoration, and singing and acting talent. Few things can beat the 12- to 14-year-old crowd for sheer enthusiasm and exuberance.

Speaking of college, March Madness is upon us in the collegiate basketball world. Only time will tell who will be in the Sweet Sixteen, the Elite Eight, and the Final Four. My non-U.S. readers are probably scratching their heads.

Even more important, the new baseball season is upon us with annual spring training games currently being played in the Grapefruit and Cactus Leagues. If spring comes, can opening day be far behind? With such posts as this one and this one and this one, Reamus continues to be our go-to guy on the subject of baseball.

Speaking of sheer enthusiasm and exuberance and Grapefruit Leagues and Cactus Leagues and Opening Days, I leave you with one of the greats:

(Photo of Yogi Berra in March 2007, used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation license)

And as always, dear reader, I remain somewhat incoherently yours.

To quote Yogi Berra again, I just want to thank everyone who made this day necessary.

Y.P. and Snowbrush, I do not care to know what or where or why you are scratching. Be advised to keep details of your personal hygiene (or lack thereof) and other habits, intimate and otherwise, to yourselves.

And Snowbrush, I most definitely was not a poll watcher! I was a precinct clerk, trained and paid by the county to set up the equipment necessary to vote, assist the citizens of the county in the process of computerized, touch-screen voting, and making sure the information they entered into the touch-screen voting machines was duly recorded and conveyed to the proper authorities in a timely and secure manner. Poll watchers, on the other hand, just stand around and try to find fault with everything.

i for the life of me can't figure out where mutt r{ruff} really went wrong<><>,.no, i am not personnally enamored with him, but really folks, isn't he really the only choice????? re: pubs like ann,,,the small lizard newt took georgia

Don't know if you are aware of it or not but here in Oz it is compulsory to vote in all elections. If you don't vote then you receive a fine ---- think it might be $100.You line up to get your ballot and have your name crossed off the roll. I've been hoping we would introduce computerised voting but we seem to be stuck with the old paper method still.Cheers

Putz, forgetting politics for the moment, I guess Mitt is okay, but he seems to be trying too hard to seem like "one of the common people" when he so obviously has very little in common with most of them. Evidence: His comment about his wife's two Cadillacs and his comment that he didn't have any friends who were fans of NASCAR races, but some owned the teams (I'm paraphrasing). A little too in over his head with the meat and potatoes crowd, he reminds me a great deal of George Herbert Walker Bush ("Old 41") because both seem to picture themselves more as monarchs than presidents -- "divine right of kings" and all that.

Helsie, I was shocked to learn that very fact -- about voting being compulsory in Australia -- a couple of days ago. Seemed straight out of the old Soviet-bloc nations. Of course, they had only one name on the ballot in those days. I trust that you have a choice of candidates. Freedom to me -- I'm going out on a limb here -- is the freedom to vote and the freedom not to vote and the freedom to tell people they shouldn't complain if they don't vote and the freedom to ignore them and complain anyway.

Yes RYP there is plenty of choice on the ballot paper so no problems with our freedom there. I think that as we never had to fight to get a vote people perhaps were a little "she'll be right mate" and needed to be "encouraged" to get involved!I have never met anyone who was actually fined for not voting so don't know if we are a very law abiding lot or it is just I move in a law abiding circle of friends. Anyway nobody complains and the schools and other charities make lots of money selling raffle tickets and lamingtons at the polling booths (usually schools ) and neighbours have a catch up and friendly chat as they line up!Cheers

My Other Blog Is A Rolls-Royce

About me

has lived on earth for 75 years and has been married for 53 of those years to Ellie, his wife. They have two sons, one daughter, the appropriate assortment of in-laws, and six absolutely magnificent grandchildren. He enjoys reading, playing the piano, driving in the country, sitting by the ocean, watching birds fly, gazing into a roaring fire, holding his wife's hand, and spending time with his grandchildren. He doesn't like doing yard work, walking a dog who definitely is not in the mood, or cleaning up after one who is (RIP Jethro, 2004-2013).

Me, circa 1943

A few months before this photograph was taken, I fell through a hole in a chain link fence in New York City and landed on my head on a school’s cement playground that was six feet below sidewalk level. I had a brain concussion. Some people think this helps explain why I am the way I am today. Other people insist nothing can explain why I am the way I am today.

Poem by a Yorkshire Lad

Song for Lost Youth

Perhaps I should have cradled it
Like a dove
Kept it safe with tender love
But I squandered it -
Gushing-blundering-raging
Like a wild mountain stream
Desperate for an ocean
That was but a distant dream.
...I just never thought
That I could have loitered in the shallows
Reflecting the blueness of the sky
- Concealing silver fishes
- Quietly biding my time
- Stretching it out.
And so, and so it's gone now
- My ephemeral youth
- That precious once only gift
- That honeyed sweetness,
Leaving only the trembling resonance
Of distant echoes
From half-remembered hills.

(Neil Theasby, 2013. Used by permission.)

Me, circa 2010 (with Mrs. RWP)

A reader in Oregon has requested a current photograph. For the thick of skull, I want to say that I am not exceedingly tall nor is Mrs. RWP exceedingly short. She is sitting in a chair; I am standing behind her and slightly to her right, your left. I am nothing if not thorough. Handsome and thorough. Exceedingly intelligent, very handsome, and thorough. I forgot humble.